The top reported proficiency rate is 59% in English language arts. The lowest is 39% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Memorial Middle School
Memorial Middle School, located on Wescott Road in South Portland, is listed in state and federal directories as closed. It was part of South Portland Public Schools and served middle grades. Because the school is no longer operating, the academic results described here are historical, drawn from the most recent state testing cycle on record, and they offer a picture of the school as it was rather than as it is now.
On the Maine Through Year Assessment in the 2022-23 cycle, Memorial's English language arts proficiency landed in a middling band, with roughly six in ten students testing proficient or above. Math results sat just below the halfway mark, with about half of tested students reaching proficiency. Science was the weakest area, with well under half of students demonstrating proficiency. Participation was strong across all three subjects. The state had recently changed its assessment name and cut scores in ELA and math, which makes year-over-year trend comparisons unreliable for this period, so it is not possible to say from these data alone whether performance was rising or falling before the school closed.
Enrollment figures, demographic breakdowns, free-and-reduced-price lunch rates, and special population data were not available in the records reviewed. Without these, it is difficult to characterize the peer environment Memorial served or the level of economic need among its students. A parent looking into what Memorial was like would need to ask the district directly for that context.
South Portland itself is a city of varied character. The Fore River separates it from Portland to the north. Older village neighborhoods like Knightville, Ferry Village, and Willard have traditional, walkable street grids near the water, while the western part of the city is dominated by auto-oriented suburban retail centered on the Maine Mall, the largest shopping district in the state. The city's economy mixes residential life with semiconductor manufacturing at Texas Instruments and Diodes Incorporated, oil handling and pipeline operations on the working waterfront, the Portland International Jetport, and Southern Maine Community College on the eastern shore. Civic life is dispersed across multiple nodes rather than concentrated in a single downtown. The Greenbelt walkway connects neighborhoods, and parks like Bug Light Park and Spring Point offer scenic waterfront access.
Housing in the school's zip code sits well above both the state and national benchmarks. Typical home values are in the upper range for the region, and rents are also elevated, with both having risen year over year. The price-to-income ratio suggests a market that is less affordable than much of the country, which shapes who lives in the neighborhood and what families can access the area's schools.
At the district level, South Portland Public Schools has been undergoing a reconfiguration. Publicly reported coverage indicates that voters approved a bond to rebuild and consolidate elementary schools, with construction beginning in the 2023-2024 period. This changes school configuration and capacity across the district, and it may relate to why Memorial is no longer operating as it once did. A parent investigating South Portland's current middle school options would want to confirm with the district how Memorial's closure fits into the broader reconfiguration and which schools now serve the students who would have attended Memorial.
No program offerings, course access details, staffing data, discipline records, or attendance figures were available for Memorial in the records reviewed. Civil rights data was also absent. These gaps mean the portrait here is limited to what state testing and the locale can convey. For a school that has closed, that is a thin but still meaningful record: a middle school whose academic performance was strongest in English, uneven in math, and most challenged in science, set in a diverse, relatively expensive suburb with a working waterfront and a retail-heavy western corridor.
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